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Messages - mike123

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176
Just got my money out  :D. Don't forget: tonight is the last time without the pay cut
Speak for yourself  ;D ... I'm holding off till tomorrow to make sure I get an extra £180! Some of us have been short changed for years!
If it gets better for you with the new change, I would probably wait a few days more.. In their email they said the change will be applied on March 3rd..  :)

177
Just got my money out  :D. Don't forget: tonight is the last time without the pay cut

178
Nowadays you can just use a smartphone for microstock, no need to buy any equipment :)

179
@MatHayward, please let us have an option do withdraw USD to a bank account directly!
If it's too much hustle for small amounts, limit bank withdrawal to 2-5-10k$ or whatever amount you find reasonable.

PayPal is taking too much of a fee for conversion USD to my local currency (and no option to withdraw USD).
I'm losing minimum 60$ to PayPal each month, which is 720$ a year only for currency conversion!
If you can, use Payoneer (and Adobe offered it in their email). It has a much better conversion rate than Paypal.

180
.."March 3rd, 2023 we will consolidate the different currencies in which royalties are paid and switch to US Dollars."..

Bad for me ,previously received euros, about -5% cut. Well great, not.
I think you can easily add some conversion fees into that, so it's more like a 10% cut..
Really bad - Adobe is the last agency that keeps microstock game alive for me and if it also starts to decline, there will be no more sense to keep microstock going  :-\

181
Dreamstime.com / Re: Would like some advice on Dreamstime. Thanks
« on: February 17, 2023, 05:07 »
I think it is possible to use your earnings on Dreamstime to buy photos, not sure though if it works below the $100 threshold. But if yes, you could simply find someone (for example here on the forum) with high-level images and make an arrangement that you buy a few and that person sends you the received amount (minus tax and fees likely). You don't get the full 42$ though, maybe somewhere around 15-20$ only - but it's better than nothing.

You could also wait for the 100% royalty day, as mentioned before, and do this transaction on that day and receive more.

182
Shutterstock.com / Re: Data deals & AI
« on: February 10, 2023, 13:23 »
Thanks for the info! Moved another slider to the left :)

183
Wow thanks Mat and Adobe Team!!!  :) :)
Got over 4000 downloads and 26 new uploads in 2022, so it looks good  :). At the same time I deleted a few images in 2022 (they went somewhere else for exclusive usage), so I hope those don't count into the amount of new uploads, otherwise I might be below 20  ::)

184
I had a look at the Mini 3 and Air 2S to replace my aging Mavic Pro 2 but decided on keeping the older tech but bigger sensor. Even the Mavic Pro 2 raw files have a fair amount of noise in the shadows - I find processing the raw files using DXO 6 and its noise reduction Deep Prime XD does an excellent job to make files look great free of noise (takes around 15mins to process per file on a 2020 macbook pro).
Have you tried noise stacking on your Mavic 2 Pro (taking a burst of photos and then averaging them in PS)? It did wonders on my Mavic 2 Pro files - the noise went away almost completely :)

185
Could Mavic 3 be an alternative for both drones? It depends where you want to travel to, but for example here in Europe it just got the C1 certification label and you don't need to keep distance from people any more, which makes flying much simpler. But it still has to be registered..

186
Mini 3 should be more than enough for microstock quality. Even smartphone photos get easily accepted for microstock, and they mostly have the same sensor size (and worse optics) than the Mini 3. But it also depends on light - if you want to shoot low light scenes (for example blue hour), the image quality will not be great. In that case you would be better of using your Mavic 2 Pro

187
Shutterstock.com / Re: SS continues to deteriorate
« on: November 28, 2022, 07:43 »
I was off Shutter for about 2 years and enabled my portfolio in September to see how my Christmas images will fare - kind of an experiment if Shutter is worth it (spoiler: it isn't, going to deactivate it on Jan 1, as soon as I fall back to 15% royalty  :D). Anyway what I noticed is that almost all of my Christmas photos sell for 10 cent (or slightly above), while other photos also go for higher prices. No idea why, my theory is that Christmas images are bought by larger buyers with large subscription plans. Or it might be just a coincidence.. Just curious: do you also observe similar price distribution?

188
That IS a great story man!! :)
And think about it, if you deduct your equipment from taxes, you didn't lose 100€, but much less :).

If you just want to deduct your equipment from taxes, you should not need any expensive consulting.. It's pretty simple: you either deduct the whole cost in one year or you split the cost over several years. All information can be found via Google. You can probably even call the tax office and ask. That's what I've been doing when I started with taxes (talking from Germany here, so Netherlands might be similar). Also remember to deduct everything you use for work, like computer, editing software and so on.

189
Great article, thanks!!

Any chance you have any tips on how to get a permission to fly in Lisbon (since you've got some drone shots from Lisbon)? I applied for a permission when I was in Lisbon in July 2022 and wanted to grab some sunrise shots over Alfama, but the aviation office (I think it is ANAC) declined mine with the reason being "sensitive installations" or something similar :)

Hi, thanks.

Indeed ANAC / AAN are often-times overzealous in their approach relating to security - I've had some bizarre rejections.

My tip is try to keep the GPS parameters quite narrow and max altitude quite low at 30/60 metres. If they do reject your submission, try again with an even smaller parameter. Once you have their OK then even if you "break the rules a bit", at least you have the authorization document to protect you if you get stopped by authorities.

I had no issues getting authorizations to close to fly in at Commercial Square and Belem next to the Tower and Patrimonio, as well as close to Palacio da Pena in Sintra.

Hope this helps!

Alex
Thanks a lot Alex, your answer is immensely helpful!!
Now I know how to approach the authorization process and will definitely try it in future! :)

Michael

190
Great article, thanks!!

Any chance you have any tips on how to get a permission to fly in Lisbon (since you've got some drone shots from Lisbon)? I applied for a permission when I was in Lisbon in July 2022 and wanted to grab some sunrise shots over Alfama, but the aviation office (I think it is ANAC) declined mine with the reason being "sensitive installations" or something similar :)

191
Also maybe clarify if you only mean microstock or also other channels like selling through own website

192
You say that you live in Amsterdam - so my advice is to take advantage of it. The bestsellers from Amsterdam must have thousands of downloads, but I see no photos from the historic center of Amsterdam in your portfolio. Go to some famous scenic spots in Amsterdam and try to get them in the best light possible.

I am always on the lookout for good weather conditions and ready to hop on the bike and cycle to the center of Amsterdam to take photos, but competition for such a popular spot is high, so I often find myself taking photos somewhere bit further outside the center. There are many interesting neighbourhoods.
But like you say, as an insider, I have advantage to someone who is here only as a tourist for few days, so I am definitely going to keep shooting.

I sold hundreds of my Amsterdam photos on microstock and I only have been to Amsterdam on 3-4 weekends as tourist and I never managed to get particularly nice weather there (except one time, but I don't sell these photos on microstock). So you can certainly do better. Don't hesitate to shoot the popular angles, they are popular for a reason. Just try to get a better than average photo there, so it stands out from the crowd

193
You say that you live in Amsterdam - so my advice is to take advantage of it. The bestsellers from Amsterdam must have thousands of downloads, but I see no photos from the historic center of Amsterdam in your portfolio. Go to some famous scenic spots in Amsterdam and try to get them in the best light possible.

194
Remove the logos in the simplest/dirtiest way possible. Why bother for pennies? I usually just paint with color over the logos (much faster than cloning) and the agencies accept the photos

195
My photography goals for 2022:
1. grow my social media (I have some specific numbers in mind)
2. travel and shoot much more then in 2021
3. create a website and setup print shop there
4. don't spend any more time on microstock - only sell via RM agencies and through social media/website
5. teach myself advanced video editing

It looks like a lot, let's see how much I can achieve

196
I decided to try Shutterstock this year again (my portfolio was disabled since mid of 2020). Enabled my portfolio, got 11 downloads in a row of 0.10$ and decided that my decision was a stupid one :). Now I have a disabled portfolio again with a balance of 1.10$ :)

197
I usually bring both a smartphone and a full frame camera on trips. But I would use the big camera only in challenging light and use smartphone for simple shots during the day. Uploaded some smartphone shots to Adobe, they were all accepted. Actually microstock is not worth more than smartphone pictures

198
Got that email today as well.
So happy I deleted all my images from DP years ago. No idea why anybody would want to work with these thieves :)

199
Deactivated my Level 5 image portfolio today. Only 500+ images, but some unique and well selling ones. Some images were in customer lightboxes, according to Shutterstock app.

Videos already deactivated on June 1, but I only had a few low quality ones.

200
Write to their support? I did that to set my Extended License prices to max for all of my images when I changed ranks

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